Grassroot Effort To Create Registry For Pedestrian Deaths In Nashville - please donate!

Thank you Channel 5 for your elevated interest in this very important subject!

Donation can be made here:

http://thesidewalkfoundation.org

Grassroot Effort To Create Registry For Pedestrian Deaths In Nashville

Jesse Knutson

4:20 PM, Feb 3, 2017

Copyright 2016 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright 2016 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Pedestrian safety has been a topic of discussion in Nashville for years as the city turns from a small town into a booming metropolitan area, and following multiple deaths and a new report shining a spotlight on the issue, one local woman is working on a website to help remedy the issue. 

"I love the serendipity of walking, it's a great pleasure, but here in Nashville, it's not a comfortable event, it's a very stressful event to be out there on foot," Stacy Dorris, founder of The Sidewalk Foundation, said. 

Multiple pedestrians were hit and killed by cars in January in Nashville, and in the same month, a new study came out ranking Nashville as the 37th most dangerous city for pedestrians. 

After seeing the report and seeing numerous news reports, Dorris came up with the idea to create a website to help educate people about the problem.

"We live in a city and we need to be able to provide for people to walk in a safe fashion," Dorris explained. 

Dorris decided to work to launch a website that will keep a registry of pedestrian deaths in Davidson County, similar to how the LA Times has The Homicide Report where they go deep into people's stories who have lost their lives, rather than just reporting what happened at the scene.

"This is really to highlight that personal story, to get more information, and to highlight these situations so that we all can understand more," Dorris said of her idea for a new website, adding that she hopes that by understanding why an accident happened, it can help the people of Nashville prevent further deaths in the future. 

To create a website similar to The Homicide Report by the LA Times, Dorris estimated that she'd have to raise close to $10,000. 

Currently, Dorris is accepting donations through her current foundation for the website, The Sidewalk Foundation, for those who are interested in donating to the cause.

http://www.newschannel5.com/news/grassroot-effort-to-create-registry-for-pedestrian-deaths-in-nashville

Nashville Registry on Pedestrian Deaths

According to Smart Growth America's Dangerous by Design report (January 2017, https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/), Nashville-Davidson Co ranks poorly in regards to pedestrian deaths.  We are currently listed as the 37th most dangerous city in the US viewed from individuals struck and killed by cars when walking per population.   This a terrible and complicated statistic. 

Anyone who has taken a walk in Nashville knows this.  Nashville pedestrians know too well about 'close calls'.  Mayor Barry has stated that 'Vision Zero' is a goal for Nashville but we have a long way to go to reach this goal.   Our infrastructure (ie: sidewalks, crosswalk, laws) is severely wanting.  We also do not fully understand why pedestrians do the things they do that can be perceived as a dangerous choice such as crossing mid-block.  This leads to a lot of 'blaming the victim' which may not be true or fair.    

There is currently no registry to track information on those pedestrians killed in Nashville.  The media and the police often have a fairly simplistic report that may not delve into specifics that are critical to understanding why these events occur.  In addition, we do not often hear the personal stories of these unfortunate individuals as to why they were walking when and where they chose. 

The Nashville Registry on Pedestrian Deaths would be a place to gather the story around each and every pedestrian death ongoing and retrospectively.

  

  Goals:

• Dedicated Nashville registry for pedestrian deaths

• To collect the stories and specifics of each and every pedestrian fatality in Nashville

• Describe the events surrounding fatal events for further study and improved comprehension

• Dispel myths that are associated with pedestrian deaths by fleshing out the details

• Provide families with a place to obtain accurate information

• Provide families with a place to share their stories
  
  

Sources will include police reports, media reports, informants and direct contact with family members.  The data will be limited to Nashville-Davidson County.  I have 3 estimates out on the cost to develop a well-designed website with the highest being about $10k.  The Nashville Registry on Pedestrian Deaths will be loosely based on a similar website created for homicides in Los Angeles and will include a map, photos and blog style reports of each fatality.  To visualize, see:  http://homicide.latimes.com

I should have a link for fund raising very soon that is specific to this project.  As of now, if you would like to donate, you can do so through my non-profit, The Sidewalk Foundation: http://thesidewalkfoundation.org

 Please donate and share if you support furthering our understanding of pedestrian deaths in Nashville.

If you know someone who has perished while walking & would like to share their story - please contact me at thesidewalkfoundation@gmail.com

Smart Growth America - new monthly webinar series. Nashville, educate yourself!

This could be highly interesting for Nashvillians!

The National Complete Streets Coalition is excited to announce a brand new monthly webinar series, designed to help professionals from a variety of disciplines put Complete Streets principles into action. Implementation & Equity 201: The Path Forward to Complete Streets will explore a new issue each month related to creating safer, healthier, more equitable streets. The full lineup of topics includes: Creating Value: Assessing the Return on Investment in Complete Streets Making the Most of Main Street: Walking & Walkable Communities Design Guidelines & Flexibility: The Latest and Greatest Integrating Equity into Complete Streets Campaigns & Implementation Urban Design & Complete Streets: Leveraging Human-Centered Design Principles to Maximize Public & Private Value The Intersection of Vision Zero & Complete Streets Debunking Transportation for Advocates: How to Effectively Engage with Transportation Planning During Implementation Join the first webinar: "The Role of Public Health in Complete Streets" What's the connection between public health and Complete Streets? And how can professionals in public health and transportation work together to create streets that are safe and convenient for a variety of active transportation choices? Join us for “The Role of Public Health in Complete Streets”, the first event in our new webinar series. Co-hosts Voices for Healthy Kids and the American Public Health Association will join the Coalition in exploring all these questions and more during the event on February 15, 2017 from 1:00-2:00 PM EST. Have a question about this topic that you’d be interested for us to explore? Email it to us ahead of time at info@completestreets.org, or find us on Twitter at @completestreets. These events will be great opportunities to dig in on how to make Complete Streets happen in communities across the country. We look forward to having you join us. Sincerely, Emiko Atherton, Director, National Complete Streets Coalition Smart Growth America

 

Your Comments Needed! Walk N Bike - due Jan 31st!

Sidewalk Update:

Help Nashville shake this moniker

The Draft WalkNBike Strategic Plan for Sidewalks and Bikeways has been released for public comment.  Comments are due by January 31, 2017.  

You can comment online here: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSenoxh-Jx9VMKORprZCGCkEksaR8mn9FNGzYiOMjuYLg8sT1w/viewform?c=0&w=1
 and please copy your Council Person!

You can view the draft plan here:  
http://nashvillewalknbike.com/draft-walknbike-plan/

You can view the interactive sidewalk map here:  http://wikimapping.com/wikimap/Nashville-Davidson-County-WalknBike-Proposed-Sidewalks.html  Hover over and click on the Priority sidewalks in red.  You can then submit a approve/disapprove vote.

You can view the Priority Sidewalk Network plan here:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-ex2Zo5PP3xeWh5bXpoYTk1RVU/view

Sidewalks Improve Neighborhoods. They are a gift developers should want to give...

It is pretty frustrating when the development community in the boomtown (aka 'it' town) that is Nashville complains about contributing to the neighborhoods that they are richly profiting from.  They should do the right thing and put in their piece of sidewalk infrastructure. 

What I can say, is that it never gets cheaper.  Sidewalks are expensive but the easiest time to put them in is during construction - the equipment is there and the land already torn up.  

http://www.walkbikenashville.org/sidewalkbill493

For more information:

DEVELOPING MORE SIDEWALKS: COUNCIL BILL 2016-493

On November 15 Councilmember Angie Henderson introduced a bill, BL 2016-493, that could well be one of the most influential sidewalk bills in recent council history. This bill increases the requirement for when developers need to build sidewalks and would help reduce use of paying a fee in-lieu of, or rather than, building a sidewalk (the much maligned "In-Lieu Fee").

This bill has come out of a series of conversations around the Bike/Ped Master Plan update (it was one of our top 4 priorities) and ongoing discussions with Council, Metro Planning and Public Works. Since the majority of sidewalks in Nashville are built by private developers, not the city, it is essential that our sidewalk requirements reflect our city's desire to be a walkable and livable place.

While this bill is very complex, it would result in far more sidewalks being built across the city, and for this reason we strongly support it, and hope you will as well! Here's a quick summary of what it does.

If you love codes and policy, we strongly recommend you read the bill in its entirety here.

3 BIG THINGS THIS BILL DOES

1. Require some sidewalks for residential development.

• This bill closes a major loophole in our infill development requirements, by requiring single- and two-family infill development in the urban zoning overlay (UZO) to build sidewalks. And require sidewalks outside of the UZO on major and collector streets and near community centers (see here) to install sidewalk infrastructure. Currently single or two family developments aren't required to build sidewalks at all!  
  
  

2. Expands the area that requires sidewalks for commercial and multi-family developments.

3. Reduces the number of instances where a commercial or multi-family residential development can pay a fee instead of building a sidewalks. In other words, require more sidewalks!

• ALL commercial or multi-family developments in the Urban Zoning Overlay, on a block with existing sidewalk, or along a major street will now be required to build a sidewalk.

SOME OTHER DETAILS THAT ARE ESPECIALLY EXCITING:

• This bill prohibits obstructions in sidewalk. For example, a utility pole.
• This bill requires that a developer that is paying a fee in-lieu of building a sidewalk must still dedicate right of way for future sidewalk development.
• Requires that if anyone seeks a variance, Metro Planning can recommend whether or not the variance is justified or if alternate design might be possible.

SOME THINGS WE'RE STILL THINKING ABOUT:

This is a complex bill and there will hopefully be a lot of discussion about whether or not this goes far enough (or too far).

• Should we require sidewalks up to 1/2 or 3/4 of a mile from a center (currently it's just 1/4 mile)?
• Should there be some sort of additional requirement around schools, parks or greenways?
• Should the amount of the in-lieu fee be set by Public Works? How do we ensure it actually covers the cost of building a sidewalk?
• Where does the in-lieu fee go? Currently they go to a neighborhood district, should it be required to be spent in the same neighborhood?

NEXT STEPS:

This bill will be heard by the Planning Commission on January 12 and at public hearing at Council on February 7. Contact your council member to let them know you support the bill! And consider joining us at both those dates to support expanding out sidewalk requirements. If you have specific questions there will also likely be a stakeholder meeting in December sometime to discuss the bill. So stay tuned for more details.

STILL CONFUSED?

Here are some flow charts to help. Or feel free to email us or Councilwoman Henderson with questions.

 

http://shadeparadenashville.blogspot.com/2016/12/i-completely-100-disagree-with-john.html

In addition, sidewalks add value as they improve quality of life.  They increase the value of homes.  

http://nashvillewalknbike.com

How We Talk About Pedestrian Deaths Matters.

This really hits home. It highlights one major reason I am so  passionate about pedestrians in Nashville. If I don't set a good example, I'm not convinced other Nashvillians will step up to that plate. 

Yielding to pedestrians is the law but I see & hear of drivers disabusing them everyday. We have a culture of treating pedestrians very poorly.  Just look at our infrastructure!!! It speaks to me & calls me to action.

http://www.walkbikenashville.org/pedcrashesmedia

HOW IS MEDIA TALKING ABOUT PEDESTRIAN FATALITIES?

How do we talk about about the ever present tragedy of people being killed by cars while walking in Nashville? It often seems this loss of life continues to fail to register as a public emergency. Far too frequently media outlets and police reports (in Nashville and across the country) cover these tragedies as mere accidents, placing subtle blame on the victims rather than looking more broadly at our street designs and why Nashville is one of the most deadly for pedestrians in the country.

We all have a responsibility to think carefully about how we talk about pedestrian fatalities, particularly those in the media. To end the week we wanted to share a poignant letter from one of our board members, Victoria Cumbow, who was disappointed by recent coverage of the death of Mr. William Smith in East Nashville on January 12th.

Victoria Cumbow is a member of theWalk Bike Nashville board of directors and works for JDRF International. The following is an excerpt from her response to a local story involving the death of Mr. Smith on January 12th. Emphasis was added by WBN.

I was very surprised by this story on your website today, and I wanted to share my thoughts. Originally, the headline reflected the injuries of the driver over that of the deceased. The lede of the story still reflects that, which denotes the importance of the driver's injuries over that of the person killed. It may seem insignificant, but the framing of that sentence is an ongoing frustration I see with the culture of Nashville traffic. I am an avid pedestrian and cyclist in the community, but I also drive my car each day to Brentwood from East Nashville for my work. I see many things on the road, and I see an increasing lack of concern for human life. That sounds extreme, but allow me to explain.

There have been times while crossing in a legal crosswalk, people have yelled at me in a threatening way. Once, a vehicle purposely sped up to "pretend" to hit me in a crosswalk and yelled at me for not walking faster. While cycling, people have thrown objects (once a glass bottle) at me or driven so close, I could reach out and touch the vehicle. And in my car while driving the speed limit, I've been passed, honked at, yelled at and a plethora of other things. It's terrible; the world is a mean place. I am a daughter, a sister, a friend. I am a living, breathing human being with the capacity to love and to hurt and to feel. Every single one of those encounters could've cost me my life, and one of them almost did.

As a community, we are in such a hurry and so inwardly-focused, we are not taking the time to recognize the life on the other end of our reactions. I think this story signifies and perpetuates that very thing. Based on your station's reports, a vehicle was allegedly stopped allowing the pedestrian to cross, but another vehicle didn't slow or stop to find out why the first vehicle was stopped (per your account). In passing the stopped car, the driver allegedly collided with the pedestrian, resulting in a person dying. This article has such potential to explore what happened, to explain the scene, to shed light on the severity of the loss of human life, but it falls short. I walked away asking even more questions than what I came into the article wondering.

• Were there crosswalks in the area?
• Why did the second car pass?
• Was it a two-lane road? (I believe it is making the passing of the second vehicle an illegal move.)
• Was speed a factor?
• A person died. Why is that not the lede?

A person's life was lost last night. Someone likely lost a brother, a child, maybe a spouse or a parent. A family's world is upside down, and the first thing you tell us is that a "driver was hurt". I would love to see news stories of compassion and feeling. I would love to see our culture become more caring and kind, and I believe that will start with those holding the microphone. Thank you for your time this morning, and thank you for what you do each day for Nashville.

After Victoria's email Channel 5 thanked her for reaching out and said they were going to do a follow-up on pedestrian safety in Nashville.

To everyone who walks, bikes, buses, or drives in Nashville, please remember that you are sharing the street with wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. We're all in a rush to get home. Let's each take it upon ourselves to ensure everyone else on the street makes it home too. And always remember, traffic fatalities shouldn't be the norm. When talking about them try to remember that.

Nashville Introduces Ordinance to Disallow Parking on Sidewalks - photos included!

Great news for Nashville thanks to both Council Members Burkley Allen and Kathleen Murphy!  

Parking on sidewalks is already illegal (but not fully respected as photos show below) but now we have an ordinance amending Metro Laws prohibiting vehicles parked on the grassy median strip.  

You may wonder, was this necessary?   

Unfortunately, in Nashville,  it is.   

This is not exactly parking on the sidewalk but the bumpers are pulled so far forward, it blocks the sidewalk just the same

This kind of parking (on the green buffer) is no longer allowed.  You can see where a prior driver parked on the buffer, scraping away the grass, and dragging mud into the road.  

You can help!  

If you see a car parked on a sidewalk or the grassy median between the road and the sidewalk, call it in 

Non-emergency line at:  615-862-8600

http://www.nashville.gov/mc/ordinances/term_2015_2019/bl2017_561.htm

ORDINANCE NO. BL2017-561

An ordinance amending section 12.40.040 of the Metropolitan Code of Laws regarding prohibited locations for stopping, standing and parking vehicles.

WHEREAS, parking a vehicle on a sidewalk is expressly prohibited under the Metropolitan Code of Laws, section 12.40.040.A.1.b; and

WHEREAS, parking a vehicle in the grassy median located between a sidewalk and roadway often destroys the underlying grass or other vegetation, contributes to an unsightly appearance, and can pose safety risks to vehicular and pedestrian traffic; and

WHEREAS, it is in the best interests of the citizens of Nashville and Davidson County that stopping, standing or parking of vehicles upon such locations be prohibited.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ENACTED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT OF NASHVILLE AND DAVIDSON COUNTY:

Section 1. That section 12.40.040 of the Metropolitan Code of Laws is hereby amended by inserting the following as subsection A.1.c and re-numbering the remaining subsections thereafter as necessary:

12.40.040 - Stopping, standing or parking — Prohibited locations. 

A. Except when necessary to avoid conflict with other traffic, or in compliance with regulation of the directions of a police officer or official traffic-control device, no person shall: 

1. Stop, stand or park a vehicle: 

…

c. Upon any median, buffer strip, planting strip or landscape strip located between a sidewalk and roadway,

Section 2. That this Ordinance shall take effect from and after its passage, the welfare of The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County requiring it. 

Sponsored by: Kathleen Murphy, Burkley Allen 

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
Introduced:	January 17, 2017
Passed First Reading:
Referred to:	Planning Commission - Approved Budget & Finance Committee Planning, Zoning & Historical Committee Public Works Committee
Passed Second Reading:
Passed Third Reading:
Approved:
By:
Next Consideration:	January 17, 2017